Posted tagged ‘Israel’

Report: Rebels capture UN peacekeepers at Israel-Syria border

August 28, 2014

Report: Rebels capture UN peacekeepers at Israel-Syria border

By JPOST.COM STAFF, JOANNA PARASZCZUK08/28/2014 15:16

Al Arabiya reports that a number of UN troops detained; report comes day after rebel coalition which includes al-Qaida offshoot seized Quneitra crossing.

via Report: Rebels capture UN peacekeepers at Israel-Syria border | JPost | Israel News.

 

UNDOF peacekeepers [file] Photo: REUTERS

 

A number of UN peacekeepers stationed on the Israel-Syria border have been kidnapped by Syrian rebel forces, Al Arabiya reported on Thursday.

A coalition of Syrian rebel groups including al-Qaida offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra, seized the Quneitra crossing on Wednesday, forcing Syrian government troops to withdraw after heavy clashes.

Islamist factions Ahrar a-Sham and Jama’a Bait al-Maqdis, and Free Syrian Army  Brigades were also involved in the capture of the post, according to the Facebook page of one of the Free Syrian Army factions, Liwa Falujah-Houran.

Rebels on Thursday claimed to be holding the border post despite attempts by the Syrian Arab Army to dislodge them with air strikes.

UNDOF monitors the area of separation between Israel and Syria, a narrow strip of land running 45 miles (70 km) from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.

Peacekeepers have been caught in the middle of fighting between Syrian troops and rebels in the area of separation

Two groups of Phillipine peacekeepers were captured and released by Syrian rebels last year.

PA to tell UN: Force Israel out of W. Bank, or we’ll seek war crimes charges in The Hague

August 28, 2014

PA to tell UN: Force Israel out of W. Bank, or we’ll seek war crimes charges in The Hague

By YASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUA 08/28/2014 14:39

The Palestinians also intend to form a permanent unit government that has the complete backing of Hamas in hopes that such a government would expedite the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip.

via PA to tell UN: Force Israel out of W. Bank, or we’ll seek war crimes charges in The Hague | JPost | Israel News.

 

Fatah official Nabil Shaath (L) and Hamas deputy political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh. Photo: REUTERS

 

Fatah official Nabil Shaath (L) and Hamas deputy political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh. Photo: REUTERS

A senior Fatah official said on Thursday that the Palestinians will seek UN Security Council approval for a specific timetable mandating Israel’s withdrawal from the disputed territories which it captured in the Six-Day War.

The official, Nabil Shaath, told the Ma’an news agency that “if our demand is not accepted, Fatah will ask the International Criminal Court in The Hague to try Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and other senior officials over the military offensive against the Gaza Strip.”

The Palestinians also intend to form a permanent unity government that has the complete backing of Hamas in hopes that such a government would expedite the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip.

“In cease-fire discussions, Israel was forced to give up on its demand that Hamas decommission its weapons, and this was due to American pressure,” Shaath told Ma’an.

Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met secretly in Amman prior to the announcement Tuesday of the cease-fire which ended 50 days of fighting between Israel and armed factions in Gaza, Jordanian daily Al-Ghad reported on Wednesday.

The paper quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the meeting of senior Israeli and Palestinian officials that  is believed to have included Netanyahu and Abbas took place a few days before the cease-fire.

The Palestinian Authority is expected to have a major role in rebuilding Gaza after Operation Protective Edge, as is outlined in the parameters of the cease-fire deal.

The PA will lead coordination of the reconstruction effort in Gaza with international donors, including the European Union, Qatar, Turkey and Norway. Saudi Arabia is also likely to be a major donor, with the expectation in Jerusalem being that unlike Qatar, it will take pains to ensure that its funds will not be directed to Hamas, but rather to build up the PA.

Channel 2 reported that a three-person committee made up of Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of government activities in the territories, UN Mideast envoy Robert Serry and PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah will supervise the process and determine what goods are allowed in.

Asked if he felt that Abbas was a partner for peace, Netanyahu said in his first press conference following the ceae-fire on Wednesday that the Palestinian leader “needs to choose what side he is on.”

Netanyahu said he hopes Abbas will continue to want a diplomatic process with Israel and an eventual agreement, and if he did then Israel would want him and his forces in control of Gaza.

JPost.com Staff contributed to this report.

 

I add this

Hamas Terrorists Hide Rocket Launchers in Hospital

August 25, 2014

Watch: Hamas Terrorists Embed Rocket Launchers in Hospital

Video shows Hamas fire on central Israel from hospital, located next to schools used as shelters, and IAF airstrike on launchers.

By Arutz Sheva Staff First Publish: 8/25/2014, 8:06

PMFurther irrefutable evidence of Hamas’s usage of hospitals to launch rockets at Israeli civilian centers has been provided by the IDF in new filmed footage.

via Hamas Terrorists Hide Rocket Launchers in Hospital – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva.

In the video, concealed rocket launchers are indicated by a yellow triangle. They are located directly adjacent to a medical center, which is highlighted in red.

Other nearby sites marked in blue include the Salah Halaf and Ibn Sina schools, where displaced Gazans are staying, and on the other side a soccer field and a Hamas courthouse.

The video captures a rocket being fired from within the medical center, followed by another from the same compound. Both rockets, fired on Saturday, targeted the Shfela central region of Israel located between Jerusalem and the coast.

The launchers were taken out in pinpoint IAF airstrikes on Sunday after the buildings were warned so as to clear civilians. Several rockets, encircled in red, can be seen exploding due to the blast, further proving that rockets were embedded there.

Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says

August 25, 2014

Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says

By HERB KEINON 08/25/2014 18:14

The Israeli official’s comments came a day after the “New York Times” published an op-ed piece by Israel’s ambassador to the UN calling Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists.”

via Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says | JPost | Israel News.

 A MUST READ !

President Mahmoud Abbas, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal arrive for a meeting in Doha. Photo: REUTERS
 Israel has not launched a full-court diplomatic campaign against Qatar for aiding and abetting terrorism because of concern that the closeness of US-Qatar ties would render such a campaign futile, according to a senior diplomatic official.

The official’s comments came a day after the New York Times published an op-ed piece by Israel’s ambassador to the UN calling Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists.”

“In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza,” Prosor wrote. “Every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read ‘Made possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar’.”

Even though that is the case, and even as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues to raise Qatar’s negative role in private meetings with US Congressman and world leaders, the senior diplomatic official said that there is no concerted campaign that has been accompanied by directives to Israel’s representatives abroad to underline Qatar’s singularly negative role in supporting terrorism and in the Gaza crisis.

Prosor’s piece, he said, was the envoy’s own “improvisation” and not part of a bigger Israeli diplomatic push against the Persian Gulf country.

Qatar is too big an ally of the US and the West, the official said, and any such campaign would be tantamount to “banging our heads on the wall.” He said Jerusalem is not interested in going “toe-to-toe “with Washington over the issue.

Qatar is the home of the US Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center, and is the location of three US air bases, including its largest one in the Middle East. It also recently signed contracts to purchase some $11 billion in US arms and weapons systems.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu – in a meeting last week with US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) – did raise the subject of Qatar’s support of Hamas. As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa is in a prime position to put Qatar’s role high on the agenda in Washington.

However, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, in an interview earlier this month with The Post, cautioned against exaggerating the leverage Qatar has over the terrorist organization.

Qatar was hosting Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Doha, and funding them handsomely, to ensure that they only operate outside Qatar, Liberman said. He characterized this as Qatar paying “protection money” to the terrorist organization.

“It is paying protection money in order to ensure security and quiet and calm inside Qatar, so they would work only outside,” he said. “I don’t know how much they are able to influence Hamas. I think Hamas has more influence on Qatar, than Qatar does on Hamas.”

Prosor, known for his sarcasm, wrote in the Times, after mentioning the tiny country’s petrol billions, that “it is time for the world to wake up and smell the gas fumes. Qatar has spared no cost to dress up its country as a liberal, progressive society, yet at its core, the micro monarchy is aggressively financing radical Islamist movements.”

He said that the “petite petrol kingdom” needed to be isolated internationally.

“In light of the emirate’s unabashed support for terrorism, one has to question FIFA’s decision to reward Qatar with the 2022 World Cup,” he said, stopping just short of launching a campaign to strip Qatar of the right to host the marquee soccer event.

Given Qatar’s alliances and influence, Prosor wrote, the prospect for many western countries of isolating Qatar is “uncomfortable.” Yet, he added, “they must recognize that Qatar is not a part of the solution but a significant part of the problem. To bring about a sustained calm, the message to Qatar should be clear: Stop financing Hamas.”

IDF Strikes Al-Qaeda-linked Gaza Terror Cell

August 25, 2014

lBy: Hana Levi JulianPublished: August 25th, 2014

via The Jewish Press » » IDF Strikes Al-Qaeda-linked Gaza Terror Cell.

 

IAF aircraft targeted numerous terror targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours as rockets continue to rain down on Israel.
Photo Credit: IDF Spokesperson’s OFfice
 

Israeli fighter pilots bombed operatives in Gaza from the Jaish Al-Islam terrorist organization on Monday afternoon.

The air strike, which resulted from a joint Shin Bet – IDF operation, eliminated a terror cell that was planning an attack on Israel in the near future, according to security sources.

The IDF also targeted a concealed rocket launcher placed within a school in the Shujaiyya neighborhood in Gaza City, used to fire missiles at Israel earlier in the day.

Jaish al-Islam, also known as the ‘Army of Islam’ terrorist organization, is called the ‘Tawhid and Jihad Brigades’ as well — the name used by the Doghmush clan in Gaza. The Salafi Muslim terror group appears on the official United States list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Its base is located in the Tzabra neighborhood at the very heart of Gaza, in the center of the region.

The Army of Islam is best known for having led the abduction of former IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006.

The group also kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston in March 2007, and held him hostage until July of that year, when he was handed to rival Hamas officials in exchange for the release of captured Jaish al-Islam spokesman.

Although the group once challenged Hamas for control over the region, Hamas is now working closer together with Jaish al-Islam and is offering financial and other support to the group, Israeli intelligence sources said Monday.

Since midnight, nearly 90 rockets and missiles have been fired at Israel; a total of 823 projectiles have been launched at civilians in the Jewish State since Hamas violated the most recent temporary cease-fire eight hours before it was due to expire.

Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza Raid

August 25, 2014

Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza RaidIsrael says it found Hamas training manual in Gaza

BY:
August 25, 2014 9:49 am

via Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza Raid | Washington Free Beacon.

 

Hamas militants grab Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel,
before executing them in Gaza City August 22 / Reuters
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli army has released what it says is a page from a seized Hamas training manual that would appear to support its case that Palestinian militants deliberately use the cover of residential areas for combat operations.

Hamas, which denies it puts civilians at risk by storing and firing weapons from built-up areas, dismissed the document as a forgery intended to justify Israeli attacks that have killed hundreds of children, women and other non-combatants.

Israel has been criticized by the United Nations and others for its tactics during the war, including the shelling of densely populated areas and attacks on several U.N. schools, which Israel says militants were using for cover.

While many legal experts say Hamas is operating outside of international law by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities from built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, they stress that does not absolve Israel of responsibility to comply with the laws of war itself, notably on endangering civilians.

The Israeli army said the training manual was found in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun at the end of July, when troops were operating inside the enclave. The full manual is 102 pages long, the army said, but it released just one page of it.

That page appears to set out guidelines on how to hide weapons and ammunition in civilian areas, how to transport them into buildings and how to conceal or camouflage explosives.

It is marked at the bottom with “Izz-el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Training and Guidance Branch, Engineering Corps”. The al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2007. Unlike other Hamas documents, the page bears no Hamas logo.

“The process of hiding ammunition inside buildings is intended for ambushes in residential areas and to move the campaign from open areas into built up and closed areas,” reads the document, written in Arabic.

“Residents of the area should be used to bring in the equipment,” it continues, adding: “For jihad fighters, it is easy to operate inside buildings and take advantage of this to avoid (Israeli) spy planes and attack drones.”

The guidelines also explain that “the action of hiding weapons inside a building must be carried out secretly and shouldn’t have a military character”.

An Israeli army spokesman would provide no further details about the document, only to say that the army was “extremely confident it is a Hamas training manual”.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “This is a fabricated paper and neither Hamas nor Qassam has anything to do with it.”

He added: “Israel circulating this is aimed at justifying the mass killings of Palestinian civilians and massacres committed by the occupation army.”

NARRATIVE OF WAR

While it may be impossible to verify whether it is a genuine Hamas manual, the Israeli military’s decision to release it underscores the efforts both sides in the conflict are making to justify their actions and support their narrative of events in a war that has drawn international condemnation of each party.

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8 in response to intense Hamas rocket fire from the narrow coastal enclave. In the seven weeks of conflict since, 2,110 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, while 64 Israel soldiers and 4 civilians in Israel have also died.

In an interview with Yahoo News last week, Khaled Meshaal, the exile political leader of Hamas, denied that the group fired its rockets indiscriminately at Israel, saying it tried to aim the low-tech munitions at military installations or army bases.

There is little evidence that is the case – nearly all the 2,500-3,000 rockets and mortars Hamas has fired at Israel since the start of the war seem to have been aimed at towns. On Friday, one hit a synagogue and another killed a four-year-old boy in a kibbutz collective farm close to the Gaza border.

Israel has frequently accused Hamas fighters of taking cover among civilians and operating from residential areas, but it has not always been able to present clear evidence of that.

Some journalists in Gaza during the war captured video footage of rockets being fired from built-up areas, including around Shifa, Gaza’s main hospital. Hamas has sought to dismiss those as isolated, one-off incidents or attacks carried out by rogue groups not under its control.

For its part, Israel drops leaflets on residential areas before any attack and makes phone calls to residents telling them to leave the area. On Saturday, the Israeli air force warned residents to leave a 13-storey apartment building before it was destroyed in an air strike. Israel said the building was a Hamas base. No one was killed, 17 were wounded.

The U.N. human rights council has already appointed a commission to look into the Gaza war, and other investigations will no doubt be conducted once the conflict is over.

Bill Schabas, the head of the U.N. commission, emphasized that even if one side in a conflict is operating outside of international law, that does not relieve the other side of responsibility to act within the law.

“There are some very fundamental obligations in international humanitarian law that have to be respected regardless of whether the other side respects them,” he told Reuters last week.

“In short, it’s not a defense to a war crime to say that the other side was committing a war crime.”

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Anna Willard)

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/captured-hamas-handbook-preaches-you-must-use-residents-area

Israel News – Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation

August 25, 2014

Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation

The Palestinian report that IDF attacked a vehicle in Shuja’iyya, killing three

Aug 25, 2014, 04:08PM | Yael Klein

via Israel News – Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation – JerusalemOnline.

Hamas is getting desperate, no more arguments , just screaming nazi and holocaust !

 

The targeted liquidation in Gaza, today Channel 2 News
 
 

The Palestinian report that IDF attacked a vehicle in Shuja’iyya, killing three. IDF deny Hamas’ claims of Israeli drone captivation. Meanwhile, a Palestinian source says that all the factions agreed to a month-long ceasefire. Israel confirms the existence of such an offer.

Fire at the South continues along with IDF bombings in Gaza: the Palestinians report that IDF carried out a targeted liquidation around noon, hitting a vehicle in Shuja’iyya. According t the reports, three people were killed in the attack.

In an additional airstrike, IDF say, a number of terrorists were hit near Jabalian in Northern Gaza. IDF additionally attacked a launching pit in a school yard in Gaza out of which rockets were fire at Israel today.

Earlier today Hamas claimed they caught an IDF drone. IDF rushed to deny the report claiming it to be wrong.

Meanwhile, the new Egyptian version of a ceasefire draft awaits the sides’ approval. According to the Egyptian proposal, an immediate fire will take place in the course of one month, upon which the Gaza crossings will be opened immediately.

Israeli officials say that they are familiar with the agreement and that Egypt has applied pressure on Hamas to accept its proposal. A Palestinian source told AFP news agency that all the Palestinian factions in Gaza have accepted the Egyptian proposal.

Hamas’ head of political bureau Khaled Mashal demanded the president of the US to interfere immediately in the ongoing crisis between Israel and Hamas, calling out to him to end the “holocaust against the Palestinians”, as he put it.

In an interview he provided under heavy security to news website Yahoo, Mashal addressed Obama asking him to display his responsibility in favor of stopping Israel. “I ask of you, as the leader of the world’s most powerful country, to speak out and end the Israeli aggression in Gaza”, Mashal said in English. “I ask you to call out to Israel to remove the blockage, open the crossings and rebuild Gaza. Those are our demands”.

Mashal later defined IDF’s action in Gaza as a “holocaust”, and even compared the heads of the Israeli leadership to those of Nazi Germany. “The kill thousands of civilians, children, women, destroy entire neighborhoods, mosques and hospitals”, Mashal claimed aggressively. “What is the difference between what they do and what the Nazis did in the 30’s and 40’s?”

Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank”

August 25, 2014

Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank”

Abu Mazen’s political program was revealed. In an interview provided to the Associated Press, Abu Mazen stated that he intends to contact political leaders in the west and the UN Security Council to compel Israel to give up the West Bank.

Aug 25, 2014, 03:00PM | Rivka Salomon

via Israel News – Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank” – JerusalemOnline.

 

Abu Mazen at the UN Photo Credit: AP He can not find his hart.
 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen claimed that he has a surprising solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and now, the AP released their first details about it. According to sources close to him, he intends to appeal to the international community to place a deadline on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 Armistice Lines so that an independent Palestinian state can be established in the area.

Abu Mazen’s aid claimed that he intends to present the program shortly after the fighting during Operation Protective Edge ends. Abu Mazen is expected to officially present the program in a meeting with various leaders next Tuesday. The senior level officials refused to reveal the names in the framework of the interview with AP.

According to one of them, Abu Mazen “lost all illusions after over two decades of efforts to reach peace via negotiations that failed.” The Palestinian Authority Chairman is interested, according to the reports, in a prearranged date for Israel to leave the settlements in the West Bank. “This should occur through a mechanism that will compel Israel to end the occupation,” he stated.

In the background of the continued fighting in Gaza, which has claimed over 2,000 Palestinian lives, Abu Mazen started to look for other ways to get recognized by the international community, one that will allow him to make unilateral steps. In an interview he provided to Egyptian television over the weekend, he intends to present his political program to American and European leaders. According to his assistant, the program will include a UN Security Council resolution that will compel Israel to cease its control over the Palestinian Authority territory.

‘Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells

August 25, 2014

Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells ‘Post’

By YAAKOV LAPPIN 08/25/2014 14:31

Hamas operates from heart of civilian population center, but melts away in face of ground offensive, Maj. S says: “We did not encounter a single enemy commander in combat the moment the ground maneuver began.”

via ‘Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells ‘Post’ | JPost | Israel News.

Read This ! it opens up a lot of questions for me !

 

Nahal brigade in Gaza Photo: IDF SPOKESMAN’S OFFICE
 

When directly confronted on the ground, Hamas became a less threatening enemy than previously estimated, the Nahal infantry brigade’s chief senior intelligence officer, Maj. S (full name withheld for security reasons) told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Nahal units remain deployed outside of Gaza together with other infantry divisions, as Israel currently fights a war of attrition with Hamas and limits itself to air power.

Maj. S recalled how Hamas “ran away from the battlefield” in northern Gaza after Nahal entered the Strip last month, as part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas’s network of cross-border attack tunnels.

A small number of Hamas units in north Gaza did put up a serious fight, exhibited determination to engage the IDF, and killed a total of six Nahal soldiers during the ground offensive, Maj. S said. But “in comparison to what we expected, this was less. From the moment the ground offensive began in our sector of northern Gaza, the enemy ran away. Its commanders disappeared on the first day of the air campaign.

We did not encounter a single enemy commander in combat the moment the ground maneuver began.” Maj. S noted that this was a “complete antithesis” to the IDF’s tradition of placing commanders in forward positions in advancing units.

A few Hamas cells engaged in firefights with Nahal units, killing, among others, the commander of Nahal’s Gefen Battalion, 38-year-old Lt.-Col. Dolev Keidar, who Maj. S knew personally.

But on the whole, after Nahal entered Gaza and deployed significant firepower, Hamas failed to respond with an organized and prepared counter-strike against advancing IDF units, he said.

Hamas’s commanders remained in hideouts, while its regional battalion guerrillas hid in civilian population centers, from which they continued to direct projectile fire at Israel. “They fired from refugee camps, UNRWA schools, hospitals and mosques. All of these things are documented,” the intelligence officer said.

“The asymmetry between them and us is very large, not only in terms of operational techniques, but also in terms of values. We always try to deploy our forces far from Israeli communities to avoid exposing them to enemy fire. Hamas do the opposite, acting in the heart of their population center to use it as a human shield for their activities.

This creates many challenges,” Maj. S stated.

As the Nahal brigade’s intelligence officer, Maj. S holds daily situation evaluation meetings with field commanders, and acts as a bridge between Military Intelligence and the infantry brigade, ensuring that its officers are aware of the latest intelligence on Hamas.

“We have been in combat mode for almost 80 days. It began in Judea and Samaria, with Operation Brother’s Keeper [to search for the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped and murdered by Hamas near Hebron], and continued with Operation Protective Edge, which brought us to the Gaza sector,” he said. “Soldiers, commanders and reservists have seen very little of their homes during this period,” he added.

Maj. S carries out operational analyses of all aspects of combat. He makes use of a range of technological means to gain a picture of the challenges lying ahead.

“This includes evaluating the situation of the enemy before we enter combat, and while in combat, to understand its location, status, and plans,” Maj. S explained.

“These days, we can really track the enemy, and pass on alerts to units that are maneuvering in the field. We can then attack and destroy the threat with all the means at our disposal. We do all of this while tackling the challenge of directing our firepower at threats and seeking to avoid harming the Gazan civilian population, which is not tied to Hamas’s activity,” the officer said.

“We have dedicated a lot of energy and resources to try and prevent harm to noncombatants. We have been ordered to do this dozens of times, from the chief of staff to the brigade commander. Our orders are to seek out and confront our attackers, while avoiding harm to combatants,” he added.

“In order to achieve this, we have to have a grasp of the territory, on a variety of levels. To understand where the enemy is located, and to be equally aware of where it is not located. Then, we must direct our firepower precisely at the enemy and its infrastructure. We do this on the basis of intelligence gathered on threats, both before the conflict, and more recent intelligence, which is very dynamic. We get information from the bottom, sides, and from above,” Maj. S said, hinting at the sources of input at his disposal.

On the basis of the latest information, “We constantly evaluate the situation, and think about where it is better to focus our offensive efforts, and where we should be careful. Intelligence never rests,” he added.

Today, even the most junior field commanders receive relevant and valuable intelligence, Maj. S said.

Jihadi cancer thrives in London

August 25, 2014

Comment: Jihadi cancer thrives in London

By BEN CASPITLAST UPDATED: 08/25/2014 13:46

We’ve been told that if given welfare, education and comfortable lives that the bog of hatred from Islamic terror will dry, however in London this does not appear to be true.

via Comment: Jihadi cancer thrives in London | JPost | Israel News.

 

ISIS fighter Photo: REUTERS A Hummer at the background how comes ?

To British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond: I read what you wrote when you learned that “Jihadist John,” who decapitated American journalist James Foley, is London-born Majd Abed el-Bary, a British citizen.

According to you, Mr. Foreign Secretary, “sooner or later they will try to attack us on our own land” and you accused that same jihadist of “an utter betrayal of everything the British people stand for.” You added: “It is horrifying to think that the perpetrator of this heinous act could have been brought up in Britain.”

Tell me, Mr. Foreign Secretary, do you live in Britain? And if you do, are you deaf, blind and dumb? Because if you are not, I have to ask myself, what is it that so amazes and horrifies you? If you are indeed familiar with the UK, and take the occasional walk in London and try to walk through the neighborhoods and boroughs that Islamists have occupied in recent years, and try to understand what they are preaching to their congregations in those same mosques that are springing up like mushrooms after the rain, you really shouldn’t be surprised. Incidentally, Mr. Hammond, try doing it dressed like an Orthodox Jew.

I wonder if you’ll survive, and in what condition.

I don’t mean to mock you, Mr. Foreign Secretary, or the UK. Here in Israel we have enormous respect for Britain; because its leadership still knows how to discern between good and bad and I am sure that, in an anonymous poll, both Prime Minister David Cameron and yourself would vote for Israel in its war against Hamas. It would have to be anonymous because otherwise you are liable to pay too heavy a political price in your constituencies.

We can all count and we all know the number of Muslim citizens there are in the UK these days and how influential they are. Here in Israel there are quite a few staunch supporters of Britain; me included. We consider you to be among the more enlightened nations in the world. Not only were you a military and political empire, but you are also responsible for most of the cultural treasures, music, theater, art, innovation, humor and creativity known to man.

Only two months ago the Rolling Stones performed in Tel Aviv (it seems as if it was 20 years ago) and, despite the exorbitant price of tickets, they managed to draw an audience of 50,000 excited fans to Yarkon Park.

But, Mr. Foreign Secretary, the UK has not only cultural heroes, but a surplus of ordinary heroes.

We shall never forget that Britain was the first and only country to step up and look Hitler in the eye and not turn away; to fight Hitler against all odds and to beat him.

Then you had Winston Churchill, a highly admired leader to this day, even among the best of our own leaders. Britain has known strength, determination and survivability.

I wonder if you still have those traits, Mr. Hammond? I refer mainly to survivability. I am not sure.

Medically, there are still signs of life. What then are your chances of surviving the Islamic tsunami and preserving your culture, your character, your personality? I don’t know.

Your spirit lives, still, here and there. For example, a few weeks ago Hamas rockets threatened our international airport and caused panic that resulted in many airlines (led by the US, oddly enough) to cancel flights to and from Israel. It lasted a day-and-ahalf, until everyone realized that Ben-Gurion Airport is the safest in the world.

But in that time, British Airways proved that it is made of the same stern stuff as before and continued flying, did not delay or cancel a single flight, and rightly so. We salute them.

We visit London frequently, Mr. Hammond. Nothing beats British football, nothing like British music, theater, art, humor or the British spirit.

But these visits are becoming increasingly hard. Your streets have changed. You don’t need to be much of a researcher to know how dangerous the penetration of radical Islam is to Europe’s capitals; how overbearing Islam can be; how alien it is to tolerance, to acceptance of the other, to integrate into the existing culture.

Thirty minutes of surfing the Internet, Mr. Foreign Secretary, will reveal to you the horrifying worlds that are flourishing in your backyard.

You’ll see religious preachers, seeped in hatred for everything Western, for everything Jewish, for everything Christian, for everything that does not identify with them.

You’ll see fury in the streets, violence toward everyone who comes to demand the freedom to live as they wish. I especially recommend a video of an ostensibly moderate Muslim preaching his creed to a congregation of seemingly moderate Muslims and, after they have all finished defining themselves “moderate Muslims” he asks all those who support the Islamic laws of punishment – in which women are stoned to death for adultery, for example – to raise their arms. All the hundreds of men present raise their arms as one. And these are moderates.

For decades, we have been told that Islamic terror is the result of ignorance and poverty. Give them welfare, education, comfortable lives and you’ll dry the bog of hatred. Well, that’s not quite true. The al-Qaida terrorists who attacked America 13 years ago were immigrants who enjoyed very comfortable lives in the American democracy. Your own British citizen, Mr. Hammond, who beheaded the American journalist, came from an elegant Maida Vale home and a life of comfort.

It is hate, Philip, and nothing else; education to hate, to hate the other, to intolerance, to a thirst for blood and murder. And here we come to our mutual interests, Mr. Foreign Secretary.

Soon you will understand, for good or for bad, that Israel is not a burden on the West. Israel is not stuck here like a bone in a Muslim throat. Getting rid of Israel will solve nothing. I think you may have already understood that. All you need do is listen to radical Islam. It talks; sometimes in English. It is exact; it is accurate.

It declares and reiterates its real objective – to annihilate the West. To annihilate the infidels.

Not only in Syria, or Iraq, or the Middle East, but everywhere.

There is no need to chart the map of extremism and distinguish between Hamas and Islamic State, for example. They are arms of the same octopus. For 14 years, Hamas has been shooting rockets on women and children, even after Israel withdrew unilaterally from every last inch of the Gaza Strip. Why? Because they want to drive us out of here. How do I know this? They say so every day, explicitly, repeatedly.

So why is the world silent? Good question, Mr. Hammond.

You know that one day your own jihadists will come back home, don’t you? And it’s time to start doing something, isn’t it? To say something. Maybe, next time an incited mob demonstrates in the streets of London and calls for “Murder to Israel,” some brave British politician will stand up and tell these people the truth, in his voice, in his language.

Or, alternatively, imagine, Mr. Hammond, what would have happened if the next generation of Hitler’s murder machine had grown up in your own country, in your London?